The argument of Sir William Crookes was advanced exactly a century after the publication of the great essay of Malthus which we must soon consider. In the whole intervening century no one, capable of being heard, had considered the question. The relation of Crookes to the earlier thinker remains, though it is curious that Malthus was not mentioned by his successor. Writing now, a decade later, I wish merely to point out that Sir William's argument is found valid. He observed that “the actual and potential wheat-producing capacity of the United States is--and will be, for years to come--the dominant factor in the world's bread-supply.” Now the recent expert from whom we have already quoted declares that “former great wheat exporting countries like the United States, as well as Russia and India, while their production remains as high, are sending far less abroad under the pressure of their own increasing needs. In this connection it may be recorded that a great American corn expert declares that in twenty-five years the United States will want all, or very nearly all, of her wheat production for herself, and will have very little indeed to send us.” In 1898 Sir William said, “A permanently higher price for wheat is, I fear, a calamity that ere long must be faced.” As everyone knows, this prophecy is now being fulfilled. Sir William declared that “the augmentation of the world's eating population in a geometrical ratio” is a proved fact. The phrase means, of course, simply that the yearly increase increases. On the other hand, the wheat supply is subject to a yearly increase which does not itself increase--in other words the increase is in an arithmetical ratio. This, a century later, precisely illustrates the principle of Malthus. Sir William also declared that exports of wheat from the United States are only of present interest, and that “within a generation the ever-increasing population of the United States will consume all the wheat grown within its borders, and will be driven to import, and, like ourselves, will scramble for the lion's share of the wheat crop of the world.”